THE STONE RIVER
(HD, 87’ / 52′)
Watch in VOD (EN) – Guarda film in VOD (ITA)
by Giovanni Donfrancesco
Prod. Altara Films / Les films du Poisson / RAI CINEMA/ Image Plus
Rome Film Festival – M. Poggiali award best documentary
Globo d’oro 2014
Best documentary
It’s All True Sao Paulo/Rio – International competition
Reykjavik IFF
Official selection
Annecy Film Festival – Official selection
RIDM Montreal – Official selection
Zagrebdox – Official selection
Cinéma du Réel Paris – Young Jury Award for best film
Yerevan IFF – Gran Prix – Golden Apricot
Cinemambiente Turin
Special award
Ânûû-û Âboro IFF – Special Jury award
Minsk International Film Festival section – The best
Dok Leipzig international competition
Doc/It Professional Award – Issaverdens award
The Stone River traces the destiny of European stone workers who, at the beginning of the 20th century, crossed the ocean to settle in the town of Barre, Vermont, where they were opening the biggest granite quarries in the world. Within a few years, most of them were decimated by silicosis. At the end of the 30s the inhabitants of Barre were interviewed by some writers sent by the Roosevelt administration to depict a portrait of America during the Great Depression. For the movie, the inhabitants living in Barre today accepted to read out the the texts of the interviews given by their ancestors back in the 30s. Through their voice, in a troubling junction between past and present, the film brings back to life their stories made of social battles, diseases and deaths, anarchist utopia, tragedy and hope. In a breathtaking visual style and innovative storytelling, the film recounts the tragic epic of an entire community of emigrants engaged in the everlasting and titanic struggle against stone.
Un anziano scultore vaga nel cimitero di Hope, interrogando le tombe dei lavoratori della pietra che a cavallo tra Ottocento e Novecento partendo da Carrara e da mezza Europa giunsero a Barre, nel Vermont, dove si aprivano le più grandi cave di granito del mondo. Un viaggio metafisico nel presente della provincia americana, in cui i vivi prestano voce e corpo ai fantasmi dei loro avi. Un affresco sorprendente che ritrae l’epopea tragica di un’intera comunità impegnata nella perenne e titanica lotta contro la pietra, tra drammatiche battaglie sociali e morti bianche, tra lo splendore dell’arte scultorea e l’utopia anarchica, tra speranza e tragedia.